Ryūkōka
Ryūkōka (流行歌, lit. 'popular song') is a Japanese musical genre. The term originally denoted any kind of "popular music" in Japanese, and is the sinic reading of hayariuta, used for commercial music of Edo Period. Therefore, imayō, which was promoted by Emperor Go-Shirakawa in the Heian period, was a kind of ryūkōka. Today, however, ryūkōka refers specifically to Japanese popular music from the lat…